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It’s always tricky to make your work feel authentic and organic when you’re imposing a rigid “literary device” on it. I wrote hundreds of poems that never made it into the final cut of WITNESS. That gave me many options while cutting and moving poems around to shape the narrative into something with both flow and internal logic. I also had poems that extended over several pages. And sometimes a single incident would be seen through several different characters’ perspectives, hence a series of pages looking at the same moment in time. Don’t despair. You’ll find your own way. Good luck with your project!
Witness
Category: how to become a writer
An excellent question. Thank you. In fact a story develops on multiple planes. Research helps shape it, current events help shape it, what is going on in my own life helps shape it. Every day, all day long, choices are being made during the writing and editing process. Dead ends are pursued and rejected. Seemingly dead ends open up and reveal a passage to the next part of the story. Eventually the story has its own unique shape and structure because of the choices I’ve made during those months of work. After a year of trying to bring my thoughts, ideas, characters, plot, setting, etc. into focus, the book arrives on my editor’s desk and shortly thereafter returns to me with questions, concerns, suggestions. And the process begins again. It’s fascinating to think of how many different books could have emerged during this process, books that were not written, sacrificed to this one story line that managed to dominate all the myriad options available to me as I wrote.
(This question came from East Prairie Public School in Skokie, Illinois.)
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A writer must carefully balance foreshadowing. Too much and it feels manipulative. Too little and the reader feels disoriented. Either way the reader is pulled out of the book and a writer never wants that to happen.
The foreshadowing is there…perhaps when reading the book again someday you will find what on first reading eluded you.
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There are no guarantees in life. If a formula existed for becoming a best-selling author the market would be flooded with best-sellers to the point that “best-seller” would cease to have the meaning we presently give it. I’m certain there are successful writers who followed a path to fame and fortune, who sought publicity first, placing the goal of being a “best-seller” above the deeper goal of communicating profoundly with other members of the human race, and I’ll bet some of them are quite satisfied with their choices, but it would not be my advice to you to follow that path. Perhaps a better goal would be to write books on subjects and themes you care deeply about. Dig down into your material, dig down into your understanding of yourself and of the world. Understand that there are mountains, beyond mountains, beyond mountains, that the superficial has its place but may not be as enduring, or as gratifying as the longer view. Write what’s in your heart, write what’s on your mind, and if it becomes a best-seller, you have that, too, to celebrate at the end of the process.
Just as only a partial view of my neighborhood is revealed through the frost on my window, only a partial understanding of the world was revealed to me in my home. In school I learned about friendship and societal rules along with reading, writing, science and math. Exposure to my teachers and my fellow students opened me up to the world and helped me to understand who I was and how I fit. I loved everything about school…except, perhaps, the tests. I loved learning, I loved those moments of understanding when I finally grasped a math concept or how two seemingly separate incidents in history actually connected. What is your favorite thing about school?
A Time of Angels
While preparing for bed one evening, I flipped through our very small offering of cable channels. The remote landed on a documentary about the Spanish Influenza epidemic. At the time I knew almost nothing about this devastating piece of history and watched the program with rapt attention. The following day I began doing some research of my own and before long I’d stepped back in time to 1918; its pain, its kindness, its hardships, and its hope.
Aleutian Sparrow
With joy, in 2000 I accepted an invitation to travel to Southeast Alaska and speak to enthusiastic students, librarians, and educators. The students in particular hoped I might write a book about Alaska but I shook my head no. I could never write with the authenticity of an Alaskan resident. However, while in Ketchikan, I visited Parnassus Books where I purchased more volumes about Alaska than I could carry. Most of the books were shipped back to my home in Vermont. But I kept a couple out to read on the plane. That is when I first learned of the Aleuts and their story. To my knowledge, no one had told their story to young readers and I feared no one ever would. This was such a risky project. How could I ever do the tale justice? I was very fortunate to have the assistance of several people with first hand experience who gave me honest criticism and helped me correct my misunderstandings and mistakes.
I fear the emotional, mental, and physical trauma of being relocated, of living in a refugee camp, has not changed significantly since 1942.
A Light in the Storm
While researching in the 1911 New York Times, I came across a series of articles written about Ida Lewis as she lay dying. Ida Lewis had kept the Lime Rock Light burning off the coast of Newport, Rhode Island, during and after the Civil War, taking over her father’s duties when he became too ill to serve. Ida Lewis never hesitated to go to sea in a storm, placing her own life in peril numerous times to rescue those who would otherwise have perished. Her life was an inspiration. Amelia Martin was created in her image.
Brooklyn Bridge
Often, when I attend conferences, I walk around the exhibit hall looking at the thousands of books on display. I also attend talks given by other authors whenever possible. I carried home Bill Slavin’s TRANSFORMED: How Everyday Things Are Made from one of those conferences. While losing myself in the wonderful explanations and detailed illustrations I came across an entry on the invention of the Teddy Bear by the Michtom family in Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century. The way the Michtoms came to create the stuffed toy and the idea that the teddy bear was invented by immigrants who had escaped the bear of Russia fascinated me. The more I read, the more intrigued I became. And BROOKLYN BRIDGE was born.
Safekeeping
There are times when those campaigning for political office seem alarmingly unfamiliar with, and uninterested in, the American constitution; or even a general working knowledge of democracy. I felt compelled to begin SAFEKEEPING in 2010 when a small group of dissatisfied citizens threatened to divide and destroy the balance of our entire nation. It seems we are in a similar pickle today, six years later, perhaps as a direct consequence of that same divisive element which has managed to shift the political discussion away from civility, tolerance, and functionality. My hope is that the American people will make a wise and informed decision in the upcoming presidential election. SAFEKEEPING is an exploration of what might happen if we choose a candidate who does not understand how to keep the fabric of our country from unraveling.
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